


This Isn't So Bad

by Bhelryss



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-03-21 12:30:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3692340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bhelryss/pseuds/Bhelryss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry Potter AU in which Fred and George are in different houses and they steal and wear each others ties whilst doing stupid things in hope of the others house losing points</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Isn't So Bad

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not normally one for messing around with the AUs posted on tumblr, but this one kinda...spoke to me? I hope I did it justice.

Weasley, Fred!” Professor McGonagall called, looking over her roll-sheet at the last two children in line. The redheaded children had a quick, quiet conversation between themselves, and immediately afterward shook pinky fingers. Fred gave the watchful crowd a curious look as he crossed over to the Sorting Hat and its stool that spread into a grin the moment the artifact descended over his eyes.

“GRYFFINDOR!” it announced, it’s mouthlike fold opening wide with the call. Charlie and Percy hooted and clapped for him, and the rest of his new house seemed so excited as well. He squeezed in beside this kid Lee, who he and George had met on the train. And by the time he was comfortable, George sat down on the stool.

A minute passed, and the hat was silent. Fred began to fidget. Another minute passed, and Percy began to shoot Charlie confused looks. Another minute, and finally - “HUFFLEPUFF!”

The Weasley children are all silent in the face of George’s excited welcome from the Hufflepuff table, and it feels wrong. Wrong, and the look on George’s face is one of complete and utter shock. Weasleys were Gryffindors the way Malfoys were Slytherin. It just was!

After dinner, Fred and George go separate ways. Fred exits the Great Hall and is led to the stairs, and climbs and climbs, and nearly breaks his neck when someone behind him pushes him into the vanishing step. George exits and breaks away from the crowd of blue and red, passes room after room. They descend one flight of stairs, and eventually turn down a corridor that dead ends at an enormous fruit painting.

“Just, tickle that pear there…those are the kitchens. Good for a late night studying snack, if I do say so myself!” The prefect says brightly to the assembled first years, standing in a mass as they are in front of a large portrait of assorted fruits. “Now, these barrels here…watch closely! This one here, and Hel-ga Huff-le-puff!” The prefect taps out a rhythm, and a lid opens. “You’ll want to do that right the first time, getting it wrong is a nasty business. Off we go then, crawl on through!”

George is in the middle of the pack, and the first glimpse of the common room’s yellow tones only make him miss Fred more. For the first time in his life, he won’t have his brother within easy reach. He’s more scared than he’s willing to admit.

* * *

The only class Fred and George share is Herbology. Fred and his hair match the red of his tie and George had decided he didn’t look entirely horrible in yellow, even if the color made it easier to separate him from his twin. The plants are interesting enough, and by now he’s become fond of his roommates.

But Fred has so many stories to tell, and there isn’t nearly enough time at lunch and dinner and breakfast, even when you calculate in Herbology! And they haven’t pranked anyone together yet, not Percy or Charlie, or any of the Slytherins!

When the first week of class ends, Fred and George can be found out on the grounds. Their ties have been discarded, and both boys seem to have really come alive. They wake up in the dark, having fallen asleep against a harmless tree after running amok. Hastily grabbing ties and robes that were previously tossed away like so much trash, they both dashed off to their respective common rooms.

George finds that following morning that his yellow tie is now ruby red. Fred makes a similar discovery halfway through reflexively trying to tie it around his neck. They both laugh, an idea forming. For the remainder of the first weekend, between homework sloppily and hastily completed, they compare ideas.

* * *

Professor Obermann, this year’s Defense instructor, is swearing fit to scandalize even a sailor. The student that is running down the hall, bright red tie flapping over his shoulder, managed to nail him with a leg locking curse. “One hundred points from Hufflepuff, Weasley!” He shrieks, counter-curse forgotten in his outraged surprise.

 

“Skulking about after hours are we, Weasley?” Professor Snape asks rhetorically. “Twenty points from Gryffindor for blatant rule breaking, and a week of detention. Back to your common room now.” The potions instructor sneers, and watches as the brat bobs his way back towards the stairs.

* * *

“Okay but you have to admit, the near suspension was gold.” Fred crows in triumph, handing George a piece of buttered toast. Breakfast today was courtesy of George’s quick stop at the kitchens, since they’d both slept in after their late detentions.

“The howler wasn’t.” George says, bright spirits only slightly dimmed by the memory of their mother’s outrage. “But I think I did pretty good myself! Snape got onto you real bad this week, didn’t he?” At Freds sour expression and terse nod, George indulges in a bit of jam for his buttered toast. Small victories, after all.

George laughs when Fred does, and that awful loneliness he feels when they’re separated is less. George would follow Fred into anything, as long as they went together.

* * *

“What,” Professor McGonagall asks, right hand coming up from her side to pinch the bridge of her nose unbidden, “is this?” George, camouflaged as he is by the red tie hanging around his neck, is confident in sharing his dastardly plan.

“Well, Professor, I was hoping that this here device would fly Perseides’ cat across the lake.” George wasn’t really very familiar with Perseides, but apparently he was a Slytherin second year who had some sort of regularly hostile encounters with Fred.

“I thought so.” the professor sighs, before shaking her head. “Five points from Gryffindor for sheer, boyish idiocy. Do not, Mr. Weasley, continue any such ill-advised attempts at flight in the future.”

 

“Okay but what is it?” Says James Feamor, a pureblood Ravenclaw first year. “What is its purpose? Why?” Fred waves away the questions, and carefully demonstrates. The match hisses as it lights, and for a moment all is silent. Then the pureblood Ravenclaw first years began scribbling in their notebooks.

Fred wants to laugh, but after a moment to wrangle in some self-control, begins. “This, my good ‘claws…is a match. My dad says muggles use them.” And Fred is proud of himself for nicking them out of Percy’s muggle studies class notes, and quite willingly demonstrates with a second matchstick.

“George Weasley!” Percy splutters, a bemused prefect drifting along in his wake. A wider grin splits the troublemaker’s face, and Fred faces the assigning of “his” one-time detention and five point deduction with glee. The prefect, job done, leaves the remainder of the chewing out to Percy, which did manage to dampen Fred’s sense of mischievous joy.

* * *

Two months until the end of term, George and Fred have both been sentenced to detentions for a dungbomb fight. Cleaning the dungeons, cleaning the walls, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, all under the nose of Filch. Fred’s hands are red and raw, and George keeps finding soap behind his ears.

They haven’t stopped trying to lose the other house points and get the other into detention, that’s just good fun. But every now and then they just enjoy misbehaving together. Like now.

“Okay, but did you find anything in there?” George asks, having been keeping watch while Fred searched through discarded items. He nods, and waves a hugely folded paper in front of George’s face.

“Whatever this is, we ought to check it out. C’mon!”


End file.
